FIG. 1 is a high level block diagram of a proposed system for non-orthogonal MA (NoMA) uplink transmission. The system features bit level operations that include a forward error correcting block (FEC) 400, a bit level interleaver/scrambler 402, and features symbol level operations that include a modulated symbol sequence generator 404 and symbol-to-resource element (RE) mapper 406.
In the uplink, multiple access signature(s) are used at the transmitter to achieve user equipment (UE) separation, or to separate multiple streams from one UE. The receiver side (e.g. a base station) includes a multi-user detector that performs detection based on the MA signatures.
The capacity of a NoMA scheme (also referred to as the overloading capability of the scheme) is determined at least in part by the number of signatures in the MA signature codebook/pool. In different use cases, the capacity requirements vary significantly. For example, a relatively large number of UEs are active/transmit simultaneously in a massive machine-type communication (mMTC) use case while a relatively small number of UEs are active/transmit simultaneously in a ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC)/enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) use case.